1982 BMW E28 525i manual. Alpineweß/pacificblau.

Apart from potential, the other thing that this car is packed with is rust. In e28 terms it’s not really that bad, but there’s still some bits most people would class as proper scary.

These bits are by far the worst-




That’s the battery tray/inner wing/front panel intersection on each side. Known for rotting on these, but these are particularly bad.

The front wings are also quite fragile (I’ve already bought one good one for a bargainous £15) and I have a pair of new klokkerholm sills, although they’re actually less rusty than you’d expect. Only the drivers front end around the jacking point actually looks suspect.
Oddly the rear arches, lower rear 1/4s, rear valance and boot floor all seem reasonably good. There a few scabs but no gaping holes.

The bolt on panels are a different story. The bonnet is an ex-bonnet. More than half of the inner skin is missing (well it isn’t, it’s just thinly spread through the engine bay in ferrous form).




Bootlid is also shot at the forward edge. Not where you’d expect it to go really, I’m guessing this car has spent an extended period parked in a hedge or something and vegative detritus has collected and caused the strange rot.


The doors will also need bits of attention, and ones got a hoofing great dent in it so may get replaced.
But, bolt-on panels are easily swapped, and not terrible to get. And for those who don’t know what my day job is, its classic vehicle restoration and customisation, so I have all the skills and facilities to put the rest right without too much issue.

2.5 manual is the ultimate spec for me. What the attraction is with autos is beyond me. I have been looking at c class mercs as a daily and manual options are limited.
Looking forward to seeing this progress.

Oil pump chains are easily available, when I did the chansons on the M10B18 in ours I bought the main chain from bmw but I ended up fitting a new pump chain too, was from eBay and exactly the same brand as the oe cam chain. IIRC it’s the same as a ford oil pump chain. If you buy a new TPS be careful that it actually functions, I bought a new one while fault chasing and it was devoid of the w.o.t. position, seemingly just because the parts manufacturers couldn’t be bothered. It’s only a switch, changing from idle, part throttle and w.o.t. rather than it being a potentiometer like a more modern car. If you need any engine management data let me know. And I trust you already know of realoem.com for looking up parts.

I love the E28, and in that colour combo its perfect. The icing on the cake is the manual box. Thats quite a project you got on your hands there. Lots of potential.

The herringbone cloth is much better to restore than leather (assuming youve got no rips).

Get those sick bags on ebay. Someone will pay you good money for them.

Yeah I found the chains, only 15-20 quid and it seems only INA and possibly febi make them. The real problem is the gear. There’s a few different variants and they all seem to be m30 or possibly m10 specific, I’m having trouble finding one.

Think I’ve got a s/h TPS, in a job lot of parts, , should be picking it up later today. Again there’s quite a few variants of those as well because of different efi systems.

And yes know all about realOEM, dead handy for cross referencing what other cars parts came on whilst parts hunting. Unfortunately almost everything I need is e28 or m30 specific which narrows the field somewhat.

So today’s little shopping trip. I bought a job lot of bits, all M535i related, off a lad on ebay.
I got a good condition set of driveshafts and flanges, which will go towards the rear end I need to build.


A box of random m30 ancillary bits, including an oil filter housing which I needed. Rob had given me an earlier one to replace the missing one but it takes a funny filter so I decided to get the later type if I could. As an added bonus it’s an M535i one with the take offs for an external oil cooler.




There’s also a throttle body with TPS in there. But annoyingly it’s the wrong one.


Best bit was probably the rebuilt rear callipers that have been gone through with bigg red parts.


Oddly there was also a really early chrome mirror in there, in reasonable condition. It’s got me thinking about swapping a pair onto the car now...

Dez I still have those m535i E28 trailing arms and brakes complete...

The more I look at this car the more I like it! I had written it off as a donor only!!